Gengensai was the 11th head of the Urasenke school of tea ceremony. At the 1872 Kyoto Exposition, in part to accommodate to foreign visitors who might have had difficulty sitting in the Japanese fashion, Gengensai introduced a new form of tea ceremony, called ryûrei, which was performed seated on chairs around a table.
References
- Voltaire Garces Cang. "Preserving Intangible Heritage in Japan: The Role of the Iemoto System." International Journal of Intangible Heritage 3 (2008). 73.